


Anne

by hellokafkiana



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: F/M, One Shot, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 03, Until we are both dead, angst and angst, because Milathos will always be my OTP, my poor baby, not for Sylvathos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-30 00:39:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8512033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellokafkiana/pseuds/hellokafkiana
Summary: It might be too late. She might be dead, she might… 
The world seemed diminished without you
Those words come to him in the night hours and in the daylight, those words haunt him in his sleeps and torture him when he’s awake, those words are part of him now. 
Until we are both dead





	

“Athos?”

A voice is calling him but he can’t hear it, he can’t hear anything now. His heart may been ripped away from his chest and he can’t breath, or think, or answer. He may be dead inside, he’s already dead inside, he had been dead inside for years without realising that and now…now he does and it’s too late. It might be too late. She might be dead, she might… 

The world seemed diminished without you

Those words come to him in the night hours and in the daylight, those words haunt him in his sleeps and torture him when he’s awake, those words are part of him now. 

Until we are both dead

She can’t die without me, he thinks, we die together. She can’t be gone, not without me, not alone, in foreign soil, in pain. If it had to end we had to end that together, we had to end that in love.

“Athos, my love, what’s happen? What’s wrong?”

He turns only to meet Sylvie’s eyes staring at him preoccupied. Sylvie. Sylvie. The woman he had chosen about his own wife, his Anne, his… He had left HER, for… Sylvie. Sylvie, who now was staring at him speechless.He had left HER for… this girl. What was he even thinking? If he never… if he didn’t…if he had…

But he had never believed her, he had never been by her side, he had never fought for her and in that moment he was standing there, with closed first, his heart ripped away from his chest and the love of his life gone. Maybe. If only he had… if only…

“Athos?”

Sylvie’s voice was becoming irritating, what did he ever find in her in the first place?

“Athos, talk to me, please”

In that moment he turns in her direction, staring at her tiny eyes. 

Loving her would have been so… easy. She was easy. And kind. And gentle. And good. But she was not Anne.

“Are are staying with them?”

Was he? No. He didn’t care about them, not so much, not at the point of…, he wasn’t staying with them. He was going to her, to find her or to… find what was left of her.

“Yes” Athos whispers softly, hoping that the girl would have heard his silent apology. Apology for not being the man she thought he was, apology for leaving her, as he had left Anne, apology for having lying to her every single time he had declared his undying love for her. 

“You’re not coming back home with me. You’re.. leaving me and our son”  
“I’m sorry” he replies, grubbing his things, avoiding her gaze like the coward he had always been “I’m not fit to be a lover or an father, anyway”  
“Athos” she whispers trying to stop him, a final plea, a final chance, a final hope “Athos… I know you love her, I always knew. How could I not know? You wake up night screaming her name, but… Athos” and she takes a step closer and in a moment her hands reaches his face, cupping it gently “Stay with me, I can make you happy, you know that, forget about her. Start again. With me” and then she kisses him, sweetly, gently. 

And he feels nothing. Kissing her is like kissing the air, kissing her means nothing. whatever there might have been has slipped away and he can’t be there, not a single minute more.  
“Goodbye Sylvie” he says leaving the room and leaving her, for good.

*

He spends the following week riding, silently, only Porthos by his side.Only when they are one day from Madrid he finally finds the courage to talk to him “How was she…How…. Did she…” he pauses, looking away “Was she happy? Did she… Was she alone or…?”

And Porthos breaths in, hating that moment. He had seen him tormenting over her and then he had seen her tormenting over him, in an eternal doomed circle. 

He wonders for some seconds if Athos should know the truth, if Athos deserves to know the truth or…  
“Porthos…”  
“She was… miserable, alone and unhappy. She… hated herself for what she had become once again. She… she was… auto-destructive, at a level I would have never imagined. She… she wanted to go on this mission, she wanted to…”  
“Die. She wanted to die” Athos finishes for him and he does not say a further word that day.

*

The next morning they arrive in Madrid and Athos feels devastated. 

The idea of… seeing her again scares him.  
The idea of… seeing her dead body scares him.  
The idea of… never finding out what had happened to her scares him, too. 

For a moment he allows himself to remember and to… dream. 

If only he had believed her all those years before, if only she never lied… If only he had come in time to the crossroads, if she had only waited a little longer…If only he had came for her after the war, if only…

It’s too late, he thinks, I have to find you, everything else can wait. 

He searches for her everywhere, in the morgue first, in the taverns later, in the prisons eventually. He bribes every guard, looks in every cell, in every cage, in every corner of that doomed city.  
But he can’t find her, she’s disappear, no-one knows anything and he only wants to drawn his feelings into alcohol and yet every-time he tries her face appears and he can’t fail her, not again. 

Eventually he hears of a dongeoun in the outskirts, a prison where a beautiful french prisoner is kept. The French. The French whore, or better the French King’s whore. A royal whore with whom now the whole city was playing, since they had been given the unique opportunity to taste what’s supposed to be the French King’s only. The tale continues but Athos does not have the strength to listen, not anymore. Everything he is, everything has been rest of him is hers and he can’t wait any longer. He leaves in a hurry but not before hearing that the French whore had tried to resist. At first, the fighter, and her resistance had only to turn them on more. The guards during the day, the other prisoners during the night. Every man had taken her in that prison, multiple times.  
For a while the general, who was in charge directing the prison had taken her to his private apartments but not a long time after he had got rid of her and send her back to the place she belonged. Not that she minded, the whore wasn’t resisting anymore, maybe she was even liking it. Or maybe not, but it didn’t matter, she was only a whore after all.

Hearing those stories breaks Athos more than he can admit.  
How they dare to think those things of her? he thinks angrily. How they dared to… touch her! Her! His wife! The woman that belongs to him, and only to him, his love treated in such a way…  
I can’t bare it, he thinks, I won’t bare it, I’ve never been the strong one between us, Anne, how can I be prepared to see you… like this… I…

But nothing can prepare him for what he sees once he gets there.  
A woman, a woman that might or might not have been his wife, because even if she seems her in many ways (this woman has her hair and her beautiful green yes), this woman also seems… vulnerable. And broken. And lost. And pregnant. 

She’s pregnant, heavily pregnant, she’s huge and she doesn’t look like Anne. She doesn’t even respond when he calls her name or when he hugs her. She doesn’t even see him, she doesn’t even realises he’s there. She doesn’t seem to realise anything, she doesn’t seem to understand anything. He talks to her and she doesn’t react. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t think.

He tries to call for her one time “Anne…” and then again “Anne…” and again “Anne…” but she doesn’t reply. A guard tells him that she’s probably drugged, that she’s always drugged. He tells him that’s the only way she manages to survive another day, to bare to be…, the only way… it’s drug. He tells him that drugs.. help her, he tells him that to be drugged it’s for the best, especially if… especially when they do her some things… things… things a gentleman doesn’t do to lady. Usually. But none of them is a gentleman and surely she’s not a lady, not anymore at least, so they don’t care.

He tries to bring her away but she is not cooperative, she doesn’t react, or speak, or move so Athos decides to carry her away.  
The guards try to oppose to that, unwilling to give up on their favourite toy but after Porthos threats them they let them go. 

Anne doesn’t say a word that day. Or the following. Or the next following. 

 

Anne’s body might be there but surely not her soul.

Anne’s just a body now. A useless body, a empty shell of the woman she used to be. 

Anne’s dead inside now and he can’t do anything. 

He tries. And he fails. She’s broken and realising that breaks him too. 

*

They are back in Paris and she lives at the Garrison, with him, but she didn’t seem to care. 

About that, or about anything else. And he tries. Time and again, to communicate, to ask sorry, to tell her he loved her, to tell her he loves her still, to… connect somehow, but the woman he had loved is gone for good, even thought he tries, as much as he can, with all his efforts, to bring her back. He wants her back, he needs her back but she’s not there. She’s been killed and yet she stands there alive. 

This dualism makes impossible to move forward, to forget or to mourn. 

They are both stuck, time frozen, condemned, falling in a strange circle of self torturing.  
Days, and weeks and moths passes and yet the situation is always the same.  
Her womb grows and he tries to discuss that with her, he tries to ask her what her plans might be, what… she wants to do with the baby. If she wants to keep him or… to give him away or… to bring him to the orphanage, or… 

But Anne doesn’t seemed interested, as she isn’t in any other thing and after a while he gives up. If she doesn’t care about the child, why should he? 

*

The day the waters break is the first time she talks in months. A scream, a loud scream, and then a beg “Oliver… Oliver please”  
He runs to her room only to find her crying in a bed full of blood, with a scared expression on her face and an horrific look in her eyes “Oliver…please…”  
He nods and reaches for her “How are you feeling? What…? I… I’m going to call for the midwife”  
“Oliver…” she exhales one last time “It’s me. It’s mine…” and then she passes out. 

*

Athos spends the four following hours silently praying to hear that voice, her beautiful voice, once again. That voice… his wife’s voice.  
He closes his eyes “Oliver please…” that’s what she had said “Oliver please…” a silent ask for help, a final plea “Oliver please…” her voice echoes back, it reminds him of when she had begged him to save her life, to fight for her, to believe her… “Oliver please…” or when she had asked him to stay, when she had asked him no to… leave her bed, leave her the morning after the night the had spent together after the passionate kiss they had shared in the cardinal’s secret cabinet “Oliver please…”

She had spent her life waiting for him, begging for him, fighting for him and he… he… he…“

Athos? Are you here?” an anxious voice calls for him and as he turns he meets Porthos’s eyes staring at him “Athos?” and he nods in return “What…? How is…?” he is about to cry and he can’t even understand what’s going, what’s happening to him, why is he reacting this way “She…”  
Porthos breaths in and breaths out, clearly feeling uncomfortable, clearly trying to find the right words, clearly trying not to upset him “Athos… she’s… unwell and someone…” he pauses for a moment “and… you. You should decide between the child’s life and… Anne’s”

The world stops and Athos needs to sit.  
She’s unwell.  
She could die. Soon. She’s already dying and he needs to decide between… 

“Athos? The doctor needs to know, he…”  
“Why me?”  
“It’s your decision to make. Legally… you are her husband”

Her husband, he thinks, her husband, and what kind of husband I have been? I’ve…killed her and then I’ve abandoned her and I was…

“Athos…”  
“Her life, of course” he replies and Porthos nods and disappear leaving Athos there, alone, tormented by his daemonds “Oliver please” still echoing back to him “Oliver please…”

*

40 minutes later a young midwife appears from his wife’s room, a young girl, with a pale face and preoccupied eyes, and in that moment, suddenly, Athos understands.

“No…” he cries desperate “No…”  
“I’m sorry, I truly am, my lord, we tried to save your wife but her condition…”  
“No…” he repeats and Porthos grabs his arm, trying awkwardly to reassure him but he doesn’t pay attention to that “No…No! She can’t be…”  
“Your wife passed away and I’m so sorry for your lost but she gave birth to a very healthy baby girl, you can see her now, if you wish it to, she…”

But Athos doesn’t listen, running by his wife’s dead body. The doctor and the other midwife with the baby girl go out of that room, leaving him some intimacy and he sits by her side, without paying attention to them. She still seems so… alive.  
She’s just sleeping, he thinks, it has to be so, because Anne… his beautiful, strong, passionate Anne, she…

Until we are both dead

“Wake up, please… Anne…please…” he whispers to her ear but there is blood everywhere and she looks so pale and… dead. Because she is. Dead.

The world seemed diminished without you.  
That’s what she had said to him once.  
The world seemed diminished without you. 

He leans on her, caressing her cheeks “You stupid. You think the world is diminished without me? There is no life without…”  
Then suddenly he hears the baby crying and something unlocks in him and he stands up, mad and hurt and desperate and out of his mind as he leaves the apartment “What is she still doing here?” he screams angrily “Athos, please…” Porthos whispers trying to calm him down but Athos has no intention of calming down “That… creature is the reason Anne… SHE IS the reason, Anne… I DON’T want to see her around, I CAN’T bare to…” but Porthos grabs his arm, trying to stop him, again “I understand my friend, but now calm down. You need to…”

But Athos leaves in a hurry without hearing what his friend wants to say, half an hour later he finds himself in the tavern and for the first time in a long time he decides to drawn himself into alcohol, again.

He falls asleep a couple of hours later with only a name on his lips. 

Anne.

He leaves Paris the following day.

*

Athos returns to Paris three years later and unexpectedly he finds himself at Porthos’s place.  
It happens before he can realise it, it happens in a blink and it surprises him because it wasn’t planned, but suddenly he realise he needs to know. To know. To know what’s happened to her. 

The child. The girl. Anne’s daughter…

And then he sees her, playing with Marie Cezette in the fields, running like her mother used to do, with her green eyes and her curly hair. That girl is Anne’s, it’s so clear to him, even too much. Memories rushes back and he feels a pain in the chest.

Anne is gone, Anne is really gone.

But that girl, her daughter, is still there. Alive. Flesh and blood. And playing with Porthos’s daughter. Porthos. Porthos, his best friend, his brother, Porthos who apparently still cared for Anne’s child. Porthos who had never abandoned one of them. Porthos…

“Athos?” a voice whispers surprised “Is that really you?” and as he turns he meets Porthos’s overwhelmed expression “It’s me” he replies with a shy smile and unexpectedly his friends hugs him tight “It’s so good to see you, we thought that you were…” but he can’t find the courage to speak, to say that they thought he was… dead. Athos smiles shy with a huge sadness in his eyes before replying “I…I thought about that, but I’ve never been that courageous”Porthos nods and an awkward silence falls between the two of them, then Athos finds the strength to talk again.

“You… you have… cared for the child”  
And Porthos smirks, smiling softly “You recognised her”  
“Of course. How could I not?” Athos continues, looking at the beautiful little Anne.  
“She’s… she’s been living with us” his friend explain and Athos would like to drop there the subject but he needs to know more, he wants to know more “Why?” he whispers with a broken voice.  
“She’s Anne’s child. That’s why”  
“Thank you” Athos replies sincere after some seconds and then goes on “What’s her name?”  
“Anne. Her name is Anne”

*

Only three days later Athos finds the strength to face the child whose face reminds him so much of his beloved and the girl stares at him silently for a while before approaching him.

“My Dad told me you want to meet him. He said you are an old friend of his…”  
“I am” he replies gently, but still feeling uncountable around that girl with green eyes and curly brown hair.  
“Why do you want to know me?” she asks curious and her witty expression really seems her mothers and Athos can’t avoid saying that “You look just like your mother…”  
“You knew her?” the girl asks excited, shocked at the idea that that man could have know her Mama.  
After a second he replies “I loved her. She…she was my wife”  
The girl looks at him confused for some seconds before asking her doubtful, secret question  
“So you are my Papa…?”

Athos tries to say no. A simple no. He was not her Papa, her Papa was one of the faceless rapist that had abused his wife during her Spanish imprisonment, her Papa was a brutal, lurid beast, a cruel animal that had hurt his wife more than he had ever done, her Papa was a monster and… but her eyes stops him immediately, her green hopeful eyes, those eyes that he used to know so well…

I don’t want to be that creature anymore, I want to be…as I was once with you  
To feel… hope instead of deadness in my heart

That memory hits him hard and finds it difficult not to melt into tears and in a moment he knows, he won’t let this child suffer as her mother had, never again. In a moment he knows, he will protect her with his life, if necessary, and anyone who will get in the way of her happiness will meet his wrath, he will do it, as an ultimate act of love to the woman he had loved, for the woman he loves still - bound to her, until we are both dead, as she had once said.

“Yes, child, I’m. I’m sorry he took me so long to come to you, but…” and the girl hugs him excited “I’m so happy you are here now” and he tries to resist only to melt and hug her too “I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere… Anne”

He remembers her last words “It’s me. It’s mine” That girl is Anne’s, it’s hers and he knows he will do right to this Anne, he will love this Anne, praying that this can make amend to what he had done to the other Anne, his beloved, beautiful Anne and when the time it will be right I’ll come to you, he thinks.

I’ll come for you, my love, and we’ll be at peace.

At last.

When we’ll be both dead


End file.
